My name is Erin Harper

I grew up in the same house my dad grew up in, on a farm on the High Plains of eastern Colorado. I have had ten addresses since leaving.

I raised a herd of prized, milk-making machines; fifteen Holstein heifers were named after percussion instruments. The milk money earned helped send me off to college.  It’s weird; I’m not a fan of milk.

I completed a seven-video series during the pandemic for Grammy award-winning, Snarky Puppy violinist Zach Brock’s latest album, Polyphony. The shorts were shot and recorded in our attic during COVID in a 3x3 green screen box.

I am co-founder of Switchgrass Film Lab, a Northeastern Rural Plains Film Collective creating annual short films with youth who collaborate in dance, theatre, animation, sound exploration, and puppetry. All work culminates in a community screening at local movie houses. Next year we will be hosted By Fox Ranch, a 14,000 nature conservancy sandwiched between the High Plains and Rocky Mountains.

VERAL, a short film based on award-winning novelist Greg Hill’s short story, “Now Museum, Now You Don’t” screened at 15 festivals and broadcast on CUNY TV. My feature adaptation of Hill’s debut novel and the first of his Strattford Trilogy series, EAST OF DENVER, is in development and was a Sundance Screenwriting finalist.

My current writing project, AJE, is a dramatic fantasy series, that features Natane, an Indigenous American teenager who preserves the bodies of her matriarchal ancestors and extracts 200 years of missing narratives from the brutal high plains town of Aje; the bloodline connects women from the last so-called "Indian War"in1890 through the end of time as we know it.

I am producing an observational documentary farm series titled AMERICAN SOIL, which highlights various farming practices nationwide. Please visit the “One-Woman Band” page on this site to view samples of the work.

In 2019/20 the feature documentary, MY WILD HEART, screened at the Orlando Film Festival the Ashland Film Festival, and in partnership with The Denver Film Society and The Broomfield Film Project. I directed and edited this documentary with producer Lily Vakili about her father Nader Vakili, an Iranian-American plant geneticist and sculptor, who travels the world with his wife, Mary Jane, their six children, and six tons of accumulated tropical hardwood. At 91, with Mary Jane suffering from Alzheimer's and no longer living at home, Nader faces his mortality, the towering woodpile, and the absence of his beloved muse. Reciting Rumi, he dreams of carving a final statue to her memory.

I produced the narrative feature, MY BEST DAY, written and directed by Erin Greenwell, which premiered at The Sundance Film Festival in 2012.

I directed a short film titled PASSION, which received funding from New York State to develop into a live international tour blending improvised film and jazz.

I was honored to work as a cinematographer with Barbara Hammer on two of her films, MAYA DEREN’S SINK, and WELCOME TO THIS HOUSE about Elizabeth Bishop.  The former received the Teddy Award at Berlinale Festival and the latter received support from the Guggenheim Fellowship.  

I edited 100 short videos for the YMCA of the USA about people who have changed their lives through the “Y.”  

I worked with the politically active Las Estrellas High School women of Yuma, CO.  With the sponsorship of Padcaster, I introduced cinematic storytelling to these young women by using tricked-out smartphones.

I’m honored to document world-renowned musicians in recording sessions and festivals around the world.

I don’t know how to reconcile urban and rural living. So, I keep making films.

In my experience, filmmaking and music creation (I film a lot of music) foster the deepest connections among people. I hope that viewers will have a similar experience.